sitting at the kitchen table of
your brother, his own table,
with his wife, and their baby
is sleeping across the room
in a crib that your mother
bought with help from your
grandmother. Your brother
says that your father is ten
years off from being seventy,
and you know that ten years
is a little less than half your life.
Is this where the time goes?
Is it put in boxes under the
bed as a reminder of all those
good years and what was done
with them. I imagine father,
old now, the time he screamed
at you while you sat on a colonial
rug and played video games or
called your mother a worthless
bitch. No one ten years from now
has to know that. Or ever will.
Does he know of your silent
steps through New York City,
your new found independence,
the way they all look at you, think
of you, as if you will make it. Or
could make it. Or might make it.
Do they know you come from
that colonial rug, that mother
who needs her mother, that aging
father, that young couple, that innocent
baby who someday will visit you
in New York City and tell people she
has a very interesting aunt.
